And That Happened

Tigers 7, White Sox 6: A bullpen collapse in the ninth inning for the Tigers transformed a relatively easy win into an extra innings salvage job, but Detroit will take it. OK, maybe “easy” isn’t the right word, because this game featured yet another lackluster Dontrelle Willis start. Disastrous? No, but I don’t know that giving up three run on five hits with five walks in five innings is good enough to keep giving Dontrelle Willis turns in the rotation. The last few times out he did OK the first time through the lineup, so maybe they should give him a go in the pen. I mean, given what happened in this game, it’s not like anyone else out there is so deserving of their job.

Marlins 4, Cardinals 3: That’s five straight losses for St. Louis, which isn’t a common occurrence. That they lost with Chris Carpenter on the hill is even more uncommon. That Albert Pujols is 0 for his last 15 goes beyond uncommon and into the realm of the eschatology.

Angels 4, Rays 3: Another close loss for the Rays. They’re 29-31, yet they’ve outscored their opponents 330-284, which should translate to a record roughly five games better than they’ve got. Not that life is fair or anything. I went bald at 25 and Leonardo DiCaprio has castoffs that look like this, so I’m not going to sit and cry for the Rays’ bad luck.

Orioles 3, Mariners 1: Is it just me, or have these two teams been playing each other constantly for, like, three weeks? Brad Bergesen certainly acted as if he was sick of the Mariners, dispatching them with nary a run scoring over eight innings. When the Orioles scored in the first, it was their first lead in 35 innings.

Mets 6, Phillies 5: That stupid New York bandbox allowed seven home runs. Man, they really need to do something about — er, what’s that? This was in Citi Field? I thought that was Yellowstone East? Well, then, it must have been some meat pitcher hurling fat pitches — er, what’s that? Johan Santana was on the mound for the Mets? When you combine this with the Pujols thing, I’m pretty sure we experienced two of the seven signs last night.

Braves 4, Pirates 3: Braves win, blah, blah, blah. The best news was that Jeff Francoeur was benched, showing up only to play defense in the ninth. That’s the kind of player deployment I can get behind.

Red Sox 7, Yankees 0: Beckett allows nothin’ but a piddling infield hit and David Ortiz of all people hit a shot over the centerfield wall. The Yankees are now 0-6 against Boston this season.

Indians 8, Royals 4: And with that, the Royals are back in last place. Maybe the tide is turning on that whole apocalypse thing.

Blue Jays 9, Rangers 0: A two-hit shutout over seven innings for Brian Tallet shut the Rangers down. Ian Kinsler (0-4) has seen his OPS drop over 100 points since the middle of May.

Rockies 3, Brewers 2: The Rockies have won six in a row. Milwaukee had no baserunners after the fourth inning.

Reds 3, Nationals 2: Johnny Cueto (7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER) is putting together one hell of a season that no one is really talking about.

Dodgers 6, Padres 4: Andre Either smacks two dingers, thus imperiling that whole “drive in a zillion runs while only hitting a handful of homers” thing. Not that I suppose he cares. UPDATE: I’m a moron, it was James Loney who was/is on pace for the odd HR/RBI ratio.

Giants 9, Diamondbacks 4: Pablo Sandoval had four hits and drove in three runs and Matt Cain sucked it up on a night when he didn’t have his best stuff working.

Twins 10, A’s 5: A laugher until the ninth, when Gardenhire, letting Scott Baker try to finish off a shutout, had to use three different bullpen arms to staunch stanch the bleeding (see above note about me being a moron). The heart of the A’s order — the third through seventh batters — went 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts.

I’ll note that when I wrote it a voice in the back of my head told me that “staunch” was the wrong word to use, so I googled the phrase “staunch the bleeding” to see if it had been used by a respectable outlet somewhere. It did appear in both dictionary and news media sources, so I went with it, even though I did think that I had seen the phrase “stanch” someplace in the past.

Irregardlessly, I it was strongly inferred to me that I should change it to “stanch” and I compiled with that suggestion.

“Staunch is preferable as the adjective (‘trustworthy, loyal’), stanch as the verb (‘to restrain the flow of [usu. blood]’). …[The] verbal use of staunch is far more common in BrE [British English] than in AmE [American English].”

On that one piddling infield hit allowed by Beckett, Pedroia made a fantastic(!) dive to grab it, but then dropped it on the transfer (probably due in part to the rain). Between that and A-Rod’s error transferring a ball before a throw to second, I started to wonder if a fumbled transfer would be closer to a catching error or a throwing error. My husband and I debated this for a few minutes during the game (believe it or not). Seems to depend on whether you view the “catch” as ending when the ball is in the glove, or when you raise your hand to throw the ball.

Not much anguish in ShysterWorld about the end of the A’s 7 game win streak. Of course, that streak was simply a function of the A’s getting lucky against the cellar dwellars in the East and Central, and squeaking out a 1-run win against the Twins.

It is apparent that the A’s young pitchers are doing well. Most teams would kill for 5 guys who regularly keep their team in games until the 6th or 7th, surrendering between 2-5 runs a night. The problem is that the A’s can only score between 1-4 runs most nights, so it makes for some pretty boring baseball. It’s also amazing how similar 4 of the 5 are: like younger Jamie Moyers, they feature command, movement, and top out around 90 mph. Kind of reminds me of the old Oriole staff with McNally, Cuellar, and Dobson working fast, changing speeds, and throwing strikes to win games.

Still, on those nights when the Beloveds get a Cust homerun or a Holliday run scoring double they might take a lead into the 9th for Andrew Bailey, who is seriously fun to watch. At least for now. And since they A’s have so few leads the chances of him hurting his arm through overuse are almost nil.